


stardust

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-23
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 06:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>night means no titans, and it also means there are stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stardust

Armin says the stars are balls of gas and dust, and some are far bigger than the earth. Some are red, some are orange, some are blue. Eren learns that there are stars bigger than the sun, and when people see stars, they're most probably dead. 

Mikasa spreads out a blanket for them to sit on, dirty and fraying at the edges, but a soft blanket all the same. Eren sits in the middle, fiddling with the small rip near his legs. He listens as Armin shows them the constellations - Orion, Leo, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor - used by the early humans as indicators for certain things. The blonde boy recites names of stars, Bellatrix and Sirius, and the star cluster Pleiades, named after the seven maidens.

Lessons and stories about the stars have been a regular occurence; after dinner, right before they go to sleep, the three meet up in the hill nearby and Mikasa brings a blanket. It's the closest they could get to learning about the outside world, because being caged inside walls, and somehow even more walls, doesn't show the vastness of the world. There are oceans, like Armin says there are, and mountains and hills and valleys and flowers. They want to see it for themselves, not just in glossy pictures that fade, but as something tangible. For now, it's all a dream, and pictures of these valleys and flowers taped to walls, dog-eared pages with all the information they need.   
(For now, they're thin-boned kids with a dream, and among them sits humanity's hope. He's blue-eyed, nearly gangly, implusive. To his left sits the top student in the Trainee Squad: pragmatic, protective, lionhearted. Their brain sits on the right, weak and frail but his brain is just as big as his heart, and it's something he's not giving up on.)

(Maybe they don't know it yet, but this is their destiny, and star-lessons bind them tighter.)

Someday they won't just see glossy pictures that fade, but real-time colors and blood, so much blood. They'll be counting each passing day by counting bodies, sunsets, sunrises, fights. They'll calculate their bravery by heartbeats, and lies through pointed noses and it's gonna be a few more years until they realize everyone is walking with nooses hanging around their necks like necklaces they're proud to wear but unable to see, and any moment they could trigger something to tighten it and scream, broken and listless. But they could make it.

Mikasa holds out her hand, Eren taking it and squeezing tight, as tight as a nine year-old can muster. He reaches out for Armin, who stops mid-sentence, and takes his hand. They cradle their hearts as they cling to one another, every shift a transfer in dependence. Until they're all leaning on each other, clothes wrinkling and heads bobbing to the side from drowsiness and their parents have to take them away.

(The stars are balls of gas and dust, and so are they; each and every one is made of stardust that compels them to their kind.)

**Author's Note:**

> haha this is so bad i kinda rushed it orz i'm sorry


End file.
